The Last Letter

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Happy Tuesday MTG Peeps,

. . . Or perhaps not so happy. We knew it was coming - it was an eventuality. We wanted to yatter about our last MPR mailing but first a quick spoiler from Michael Robles over at Wizards who posted this Mirrodin Besieged spoiler on the Wizards Community Webpage here.

Melira's Keeper, 4 g
Creature - Human Warrior, Uncommon
Melira's Keeper can't have counters placed on it.
4/4

Wonderful against the horde of infect critters Phyrexia has running around but we think the converted mana cost of 5 is a tad high. Having said that we do like that its in green and if necessary, we could ramp into it.

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Anywhoos - back to that MPR thing we wanted to yatter about . . .

Failing any future 'Cease and Desist' letter, we have received our very last mail-out from Wizards this afternoon. Yep. Our very last Magic Player Rewards hit our mail box.

You may recall our previous post way back at the beginning of November of the announcement from Wizards indicating the scrapping of this (popular) program in order to re-direct resources to the organised play program (wpn).

We are and are not sad. Personally, we have actually seen an improvement at our local store in way of promotions and prize support but still cannot quite come to terms with the loss of that special feeling we got twice / thrice a year when Wizards sent us some swag in the mail.


Anywhoos - let's see what we got in the very last letter . . .

• Sad Panda Letter
• Oversize Hero of Bladehold promo
• Day of Judgement
• Treasure Hunt
• Negate
• Rampant Growth
• Searing Blaze

A very good mix of current standard environment cards . . . we now have to commit to memory the card text if we slide them into any of our decks.


Day of Judgment, 2ww
Sorcery, Zendikar Rare
Destroy all creatures.

Treasure Hunt, 1u
Sorcery, Worldwake Common
Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card, then put all cards revealed this way into your hand.

Rampant Growth, 1g
Sorcery, Magic 2010 Common
Search your library for a basic land card and put that card onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.

Searing Blaze, rr
Instant, Worldwake Common
Searing Blaze deals 1 damage to target player and 1 damage to target creature that player controls.
Landfall — If you had a land enter the battlefield under your control this turn, Searing Blaze deals 3 damage to that player and 3 damage to that creature instead.


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Magic Player Rewards

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Wizards of the Coast has decided to end the Magic: the Gathering Magic Player Rewards (MPR) program.A The Magic Player Rewards program rewarded participants of DCI sanctioned events with promotional Magic: the Gathering cards for competing in a set number of events. Very unfortunately, according to this post the Magic Player Rewards Program has been discontinued. We here at MTG Realm hope that the new and exciting Magic play experiences promised to replace this very cool program is, well, new and exciting . . .

After a rigorous evaluation, Wizards of the Coast has decided to eliminate the Magic Player Rewards Program. It is important to us to provide you, the player, with the best possible Magic: The Gathering experiences. In this case we are redirecting these resources to increase our player support for local organized play programs. The December 2010 mailing will be the final MPR mailing and will include extra cards in addition to the cards you would have normally received. This mailing will encompass all reported tournament activity through November 15, 2010. We appreciate the dedication of our fans and look forward to providing new and exciting Magic play experiences.
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The Magic Player Rewards program was created on May 21st, 2001 to make DCI sanctioned tournaments more attractive. The program is open to everyone. Once registered, each participant receives a membership card, and every attendance on a DCI sanctioned tournament is recorded.
Magic Player Rewards participants receive benefits for each increment of 5 and 20 tournaments listed in the DCI database under their DCI number.

For every 5 tournaments, you receive 1 random new textless spell and 1 random older card wrapped together; and
For every 20 events, you receive a premium foil card.

Here's some recent promos provided by the program . .

(Foil) Lightning Bolt, illustrated by Véronique Meignaud
Cancel, illustrated by Izzy
Sign in Blood, illustrated by Alan Pollack
Infest, illustrated by Pete Venters
Volcanic Fallout, illustrated by Jim Pavelec
Celestial Purge, illustrated by Nils Hamm
Bituminous Blast, illustrated by Aleksi Briclot
Burst Lightning, illustrated by Jung Park
Harrow, illustrated by Lars Grant-West

(Foil) Day of Judgment illustrated by Svetlin Velinov
Brave the Elements, illustrated by Kekai Kotaki
Doom Blade, illustrated by Carl Critchlow

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And finally, a reminder about the promo MTG Mint Card is having - its a Thanksgiving Sale with 7% Store Wide Discount from today until the 25th November. Just enter coupon "THANKSGIVING" during checkout. You may want to use this when purchasing the new MTG Premium Deck Series : Fire & Lightning.

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MTG Rewards

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This is of course fairly old news but we wanted to yatter about the benefits of signing up for the Magic the Gathering Player Rewards (aka MPR) program. This is where you the player saunter in to your local game shop and sign up to receive sweet cardboard booty in the mail. Really can't go very wrong with that.

Briefly - Once you're in (we just said urine!) the system, for every 5 tournaments you participate in, you receive 1 random new textless spell and 1 random older card wrapped together; and for every 20 events (Friday Night Magic as an example), you receive a premium foil card.

Check out what we got from Wizards in the January 2010 mailing . . .

mmmm - textless Infest, Sign in Blood, Harmonize and a foil Lightning Bolt - really nice art on 'em too. On the back of the oversized new Worldwake Comet Storm (one of our first Worldwake spoilers), we have the following pre-relase (Comet Storm) and release cards (Joraga Warcaller) . . .

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With regards to yesterday's post (Joraga Green) we got a this comment from long time MTG Realm reader gregtron . . .

I love how dedicated you are to breaking Sigil Captain! This deck has me wondering if we might see the return of a viable black/green aggro elves deck. Even just a splash of black in Eldrazi Green would allow you to play Maelstrom Pulse to wreck the mirror.

We do realise that we have this thing for Sigil Captain - don't worry, we are going to therapy for this. This next casual MTG build we went big and stupid just to prove gregtron correct in his assessment of our mental state . . .

This deck features massive mana acceleration with Birds and Noble Hierarch to get an early drop of Mycoloth or Ant Queen. Pumps include Sigil Captain (of course) and Oran Rief, the Vastwood.

Playtesting this casual deck - Of course it lost more games than it won but the important thing, it was fun, and when it did win, it was just short of epic with dozens of pumped Saprolings and Insects.

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MTG Realm announcement . . .
Stay tuned for this Friday's post - we got goodies from Wizards !
Yep - that's right, we have four commons and one uncommon Worldwake spoilers right before the previews begin on Wizards.

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Zendikar Spoilers 9-17

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Hey there, welcome to yet another post to the MTG Realm Blog. Today we have two more Magic the Gathering Zendikar previews for you spoiler nutters out there in internet-land. We will cover off the two WoTC previews and move off as to what MPRs one can expect in the mail from Wizards latter this month.

Let's go . .

Lotus Cobra, 1g
Creature - Snake, Mythic Rare
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
2/1

w0w ! - Holy crap thats a nice card. Expect to pay about $20 to $25 for a single (at least up here in Canada-Land). Not sure why they needed this card to be a Mythic Rare though (?) - Wizards wants the secondary (singles) market to make money too I guess. Now - about that flavour text "Its scales contain the essence of thousands of lotus blooms" . . . like I said before - someone at WoTC design takes waaay too much cold medicine.

*Edit: A recent tweet from Sam Stoddard on the Lotus Cobra price - "note to self: get on eBay faster next time. Buy it NOWs for Lotus Cobra started at 17.99, went to 29.99, to 44.99 to 99.99 overnight." - DANG! - This is Madness !

Anywho, the mono-green deck-heads are now dreaming of beautiful ramp with Lotus Cobra, Harrow, Rampant Growth, Khalni Heart Expedition, Fertile Ground, Trace of Abundance, Llanowar Elves, whatever (!) to rapidly push out HUGE monsters onto the board . . . imagine a Protean Hydra coming out like this . . .

Turn 1 : Forest, Llanowar Elves
Turn 2 : Forest, Lotus Cobra
Turn 3 : Fetchland, pop the fetchland, play Harrow, and drop a monstrous Protean Hydra.
(someone grab a calculator and figure out how big the Hydra is gonna be - I have not had my coffee yet and am functioning on only a handful of brain cells)

Pyromancer Ascension, 1
Enchantment, Rare
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell that has the same name as a card in your graveyard, you may put a quest counter on Pyromancer Ascension.
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell while Pyromancer Ascension has two or more quest counters on it, you may copy that spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.

Dang - this one is good too. Burn baby burn! This enchantment is begging to abused and buh-roken. It will be no big surprise to me to hear of someone opening up a can of red burn and killing an opponent in like four turns (or less).

UPDATE: There are also four unconfirmed / rumoured cards just out - like we said - could be fake but so far looks good . .

Burst Lightning,
Instant
Kicker 4
Deal 2 damage to target creature or player, If it was Kicked deal 4 damage instead

Into the Roil, 1
Instant, Common
Kicker 1{U} (You may pay an additional 1{U} as you cast this spell.)
Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. If Into the Roil was kicked, draw a card.

Rite of Replication, 2
Sorcery, Rare
Kicker 5 (You may pay an additional 5 as you cast this spell.)
Put a token that is a copy of target creature onto the battlefield. If Rite Of Replication was kicked, instead put five of those tokens onto the battlefield.

Hellkite Charger, 4
Creature Dragon
Flying Haste
5/5
When it attackes you may pay 5RR if you do untap all creatures you control and get another attack step.

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We also have news of the new Mgic Players Reward mailout. If you signed up for the program with your DCI number, you can expect Sign in Blood, Cancel, and a freak'n Foil Lightning Bolt !



Here are the details - For every 20 sanctioned events you participat in, you qualify for one foil textless card. Also, for every 5 sanctioned events you participate in, you also qualify for one "token set," which consists of two textless cards (one in the current rotation and one old one). This reward stacks with the 20 events mentioned previously. So the long and short of it is if you play in 20 events, expect to get four token sets and one foil in the mail courtesy of Wizards. For more information on this program, click HERE.

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Stay tuned to this channel for more Magic awesomeness and don't forget to stay tuned to our continually updated Zendikar spoiler list HERE.

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ARB Spoiler 3

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Alara Reborn Spoiler 3

We have a total of 8 (!) Alara Reborn Spoilers for you today. On the weekend, of the community peeps received a Magic Player's Reward oversize card in the mail. To his (and our) surprise, it was a card from the yet-to-be-released Alara Reborn set. Duh - of course we are going to spoil this - thanks Wizards !

Perhaps because I am fairly new to the game that I do not really understand oversized cards. Why ? Can you actually build an over sized deck ? Can you even shuffle these puppies ? Would clowns like these ? Personally - they are just cardboard to me with as much significance as the box of Korn Flakes I'm looking at right now. Anywho - Less rant and more spoiler eh ?

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Spellbreaker Behemoth, 1RGGg
Creature - Beast, Rare
Spellbreaker Behemoth can't be countered.
Creature spells you control with power 5 or greater can't be countered.

Nice ! I don't think that this will be seeing much action however except in a Naya Stompy sideboard against a control blue but hey - every card has it's place - even Grizzly Bears.

The next few are taken from the most recent edition of Game Japan.

Aven Mimic, 1WU
Creature - Bird Wizard, Rare
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a Wing counter on target creature.
Each creature with a Wing counter on it is 3/1 and has flying.
3/1

Hey - this could be good in the right deck but I am not holding my breath for this card to take a strong position in casual constructed.


AEther-caste Knight, WU
Artifact Creature - Human Knight, Common
Exalted
1/3

Very nice - Esper now has Knights. This 2 drop swings as a 2/4 with the exalted abilities. I see Sigiled Paladin being picked over this one but I know that players will find a home for this Knight.

Tar Shards, 3BR
Instant, Uncommon
Tar Shards deals 4 damage to target creature.
Double Cast (When you play this spell, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card with lesser converted mana cost than this spell. You may play that card without paying its mana cost. Then put all revealed cards still in your library on the bottom of your library at random order.)

Umm - interesting. We can now chalk up our very first Shards of Alara mechanic here - 'Double Cast'. This instant will timmy for 4 damage AND bring out another spell (for 4 or less) onto the board for free. I am going to have to think about just how evil I can make this card.


Exsanguination, 2BR
Sorcery, Rare
Choose target player. Name a nonland card. That player reveals his or her hand. Exsanguination deals 3 damage for each card with that name in that player's hand to that player. Remove cards with that name from that player's graveyard, hand and library. That player then shuffles his/her library.

Some may start to compare this as a much more expensive Runed Halo but remember that this MAY pain your opponent for 3 (or more). I'm thinking that this will see some play.


Pale Priest-Spider, 4GW
Creature - Spider, Common
Reach
Forestcycling 2 (2, discard this card: Search your library for a forest card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)
Plainscycling 2 (2, discard this card: Search your library for a plains card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)

Here we have another twist on the cycling mechanic - Forestcycling, and Plainscycling. I see some weird but deadly deck which features this card, Knight of the Reliquary and a bunch of Eventide 'Retrace' cards.


Sage of the Anima, 3gu
Creature - Elf Wizard, Rare
If you would draw a card, reveal the top three cards of your library instead. Put all creature cards revealed this way into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
3/4

This may be a good card with a whole lot of unreasonable conditional terms. Waaay too many conditions must be in place for this card to work well.


Marici Twinclaw, 2{W/R}g
Creature - Cat Warrior, Uncommon
Double strike
2/4

Hello again HYBRID ! ! So, it's a 2/4 four drop critter with double strike. Not many will complain about this card. If you hear someone say 'what about Flame Javelin' - tell them they are just unreasonably greedy.

New MPR & Gateway Promos

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Looks like we can expect Blightning as the next Magic Players reward cards (sorry about the quality of the scan).


Blightning, 1BR
Converted Mana Cost:
Sorcery
Blightning deals 3 damage to target player. That player discards two cards.

Very popular in a lot of beat down decks.

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Also - a brief note about Gateway promos.

We can expect Hellspark Elemental and Path to Exile.

















Hellspark Elemental, 1R
Creature - Elemental
Trample, haste
At end of turn, sacrifice Hellspark Elemental.
Unearth 1R
3 / 1

Path to Exile, W
Instant
Remove target creature from the game. Its controller may search his or her library for a basic land card, put that card into play tapped, then shuffle his or her library.

If you don't know these are for game organisers . . .
40 each of 2 different alternate art promotional cards
·Conflux Magic The Gathering Gateway Kit poster
·Gateway Kit Information Sheet
·Gateway League Tracking Sheet
·How to Run a Magic The Gathering Tournament information
·How to Schedule and Report a Casual Event information
·5 DCI membership cards to sign up new players

Very cool alternate art . . . thanks Wizards !